


Afterwards

by Triss_Hawkeye



Category: Once Upon A Time (In Space) (Album), The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-20 06:20:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10656702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Triss_Hawkeye/pseuds/Triss_Hawkeye
Summary: In the aftermath of the war, what becomes of the Rose Reds?





	Afterwards

**Author's Note:**

> An old fic I put up on Tumblr a few years ago.

Rose Red, Soldier Unit (Model 4) RR-7784 becomes a mercenary. Fighting’s what she does well, so she does it. Those years see an unnerving increase in soldiers for hire. The War is over, but war never is. There’s always someone, somewhere, who needs capable hands wielding a gun.

Guard Unit RR-0232 had been guarding a town (just a Model 3 after all - retired early off the front lines when the replacements rolled in). When the orders stop coming in the chaos, she stays, becoming as much a feature of the town as the cheap brick and corrugated iron. There isn’t exactly anywhere else to go.

Pilot Unit RR-4965 was halfway to the Darling Cluster, resolutely ignoring the nebula to the right, all new stars and uncharted worlds to pass a thousand times and never to explore. When the news comes in, with the order to return to base at once, she takes another long look at the swirling, beckoning clouds, hiding who-knew-what within. “Fuck it,” she mutters, and changes course.

Guard Unit RR-1148 sends out a cautious note to a number of us drifting around the arse end of nowhere. We meet up, chat about old times, ask each other what we’re doing. Working. Living. It’s so surreal to see us almost normal. Weird enough to make you ill. Old Rosie’s wandered off. No one’s seen her in months. Some of us wish her luck.

Soldier Unit RR-9352 sits at some godforsaken bar on a godforsaken backwater planet, somewhere in that vast expanse of stars. The lights flicker, as they have done every day for years. She knocks back a drink, and signals for another with no more than a look from her bloodshot eyes. Across the galaxy, thousands more do the same. We always had a taste for whisky.

Soldier Unit RR-0042 flips out. Hundreds of Rose Reds turn up dead, here and there, systematically purged from a system of planets a couple of stars over from New Constantinople. We only find out it was her because she ends up getting it from RR-0789, who was doing a similar thing several light years away. The few of us who still ever met each other, stop.

Scout Unit RR-0117, marooned on a planet galaxies away after an accident during Mission: Codename Secret Garden, keeps an eye on a rogue crew who make port there from time to time. Could be they’re nothing but trouble, to whatever galaxy they land in. Could be she just wants to hear the stories again.


End file.
